Part II

This forum is for the discussion of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Part II.

the second part is basically about Marlowes actual trip down the river. he overhears bad talk between the manager of the company and the managers uncle who has brought some derelict 'traders' to the post with him, with cheap crap to trade for ivory. the uncle and manager don't care for Kurtz and hope he dies of whatever ails him. the uncle sets out and we len all his donkeys die. it is alluded that many of the natives that went with him may be dead as well.
The trip is very long and it is noted that the cannibals hippo meat is tossed overboard because it stinks. none of the white people are concerned with how or what the cannibals will eat and Malowe explains he wasn't even worried that they would eat him or the other 'pilgrims' (white men) who all looked unappetizing. he notes toward the end of the 2nd part that the cannibals are passing calm while the white men on the steamer are disorganized, loud and brash. He comments that the natives are to he and the whites on the ship as the first english people may have been to the romans...uncivilized and hardly human.
Marlowe develops are real need to actually speak to kurtz and is worried he may already be dead when they finally ge to their destination. he has built kurtz up to be of mythical proportions,especially when he learns that the steamer as attacked as they near Kurtz residence because the natives don't wish for Kurtz to be removed from the area by the steamer.

Could it be that Kurtz and what he stands for is the "Heart of Darkness."

It could be him or the Belgium influence or the white mans influence in its interiety!